Nothing.

Nothing is there
I’m just sitting,
waiting to hear your damned drunken voice
the grasp of years spent sucking down
thousands of cigarettes and
hundreds of gallons of red wine
the tannins sucking your mouth into a tight circle
the cigarettes folding your vocal folds
following the rule of seven
seven folds and that is all that can exist,
after that nothing else can crease in half,
and it seems that I’ve tried to crease at least eight times
folding and folding and folding within myself
becoming a dense core of what you think good poetry is,
but fuck your idea of writing;

butt fuck your idea of writing

what’s good
what’s beautiful
what’s true
it’s nothing
and means nothing
and holds nothing
and just like you
[damn is it just like you]
it’s dust in a shell
dead skin collected in an old wine bottle
piled thickly and grey,
sickly deep like clay
leaving a residue where it has been
and you don’t own my words

you don’t
you can’t
walk in with your star-spangled
misogynistic,
drunk as fuck,
limp dick,
forty-thousand dollar a year,
mortgaged,
coked-out,
nine to five,
eek out a living,
small loan of a million dollars,
drive through,
extra cheese,
forty-minute shower
attitude

thinking that
because I was raised in the west
I must fight gorillas,
slide over the hoods of cars,
bleed deep, American red.

some part of my soul took a step
down that rusted road
years ago,
then quickly realized that it was
covered in potholes that no one was able to fill.

So now I’m sitting,
waiting to hear your drunken,
cracked whisper,
hoping that it slips through
the covers of my morning sleep.
As hopeless as it is,
it used to bring a sense of peace.

But I know you’re not gone enough
to tell me my words are good
and I’m past the point where I need to hear it.

now,
as the rush of cars burn the asphalt into a deep dust,
and people destroy their stomach linings with too much acid,
as I sit back and watch the world slowly poisoning itself,
I’m glad to hear your deafening silence,
your
nothing.